IMMORTALITY AND CHRIST.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Emanuel Deutsch, in his well-known article on the Talmud, does not admit that the Sadducees were more than a small school of thought, whereas the Pharisees were, to use his own language, "simply the people." Apart, however, from this statement, I would remark that prayer for the dead was a Jewish custom, and necessarily implied a belief in a future life. The Jews in all pro- bability learnt this doctrine in Persia, for we know they learnt many things during their exile, and the Talmud was probably indebted to the "Avesta." The "Avesta" is written in language centuries older than that of the Cuneiform Inscriptions,—in short, it gives the belief of the very earliest ages of mankind. Bleeck, writing on the "Avesta," says :—A religion which is probably as ancient as Judaism, and which certainly taught the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments, for cen- turies before these doctrines were prevalent among the Jews," &c.
If there is thus ample proof that a belief in immortality was prevalent ages before the coming of Christ, that the "Avesta" is fall of such teaching, that the Jews were thrown in contact with this doctrine in Persia, and it is found in their Talmud, then it is not too much to assume that the Sadducees had not just ground for denying immortality, and yet remaining Jews. We know that the Jews did not manage to escape from Hellenic scepticism, and doubtless the denial of a resurrection came from without, and rot from within. I cannot help thinking that our Lord's apparently sarcastic reference to the text, " I am the God of Abraham," as a proof of the immortality of the soul, was meant as a rebuke, be- cause their questions were captious, as their own authoritative writings proved the truth of what they asked him as an open [We never doubted what our correspondent maintains. All we said was that if the Jewish Scriptures do not " authoritatively " teach immortality, as they teach belief in God and his law,—and this is a very common view among learned men,—the orthodox Jews and orthodox Christians would have a fair case for main- taining that as to immortality, either doctrine might have been held without heresy by a Jew in the time of Christ.—En. Spectator.]
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